Hi there,

So, the car had not been driven for 1.5 week, while I was waiting for a new brake booster. Once I got the booster I replaced it as well as the struts and shocks and the rear lower control arms and put new front brakes. Everything seemed to be fine until after a 15 min drive, when I found that there is a weird howling noise occurring between 45-50 mph (most of which can be heard at ~47mph) when it's in a gear and decelerating (no matter how fast or slow). No noise when the car is accelerating though and it's also gone if you disengage the clutch. It happens in 3-5 gears (most noticeable in 3rd though) .

The noise is there whether I'm braking or turning (but it's hard to trace the noise when braking because of the small speed window when it's heard). I flushed the rear differential oil a couple of days ago but I did not change anything.

I put some new castrol XJ (the same as in the diff) oil in the transfer case 15 months ago, when I was changing the clutch and some new oil in the gearbox 15 mo and 6 months ago. I also got a brand new prop shaft a bit more than a year ago.

Any ideas what it could be? The TC? Something else? This weekend I'm going to recheck everything that was done during the suspension work, but not sure it helps. Also I thought it could be cv joints, since we managed to replace the struts without removing them, and could stress them too much in some way... but I doubt that as well.

It's not that loud to make a video but in some way it's similar to the sound in the 9-10 second
Will go to a dealer next week...

 

Nardo, what you are describing sounds a lot like a U-joint going out. Could be a CV joint too. Based on the fact that you just did a lot of work to the front end of the car, I would be leaning towards a CV joint personally. Now the trick comes down to isolating it to a side of the car.

 

So, It's been almost 4 month since the noise appeared. Tried to trace it, but nothing. Tend to think it's the gearbox, but I'm puzzled because it happened right after the suspension work.

Meanwhile we found that there is a little play (up and down) in the front drive axles (well the car has 108k miles). So, I've been thinking about replacing them. And that's where I'm confused. The cheapest OEM axle costs ~$510, which is a bit insane. So, does anyone know an aftermarket brand which makes decent drive shafts?

Thx!